The first footage from Darren Aronofsky’s Noah

It isn’t much, but at long last, we have the first footage from Darren Aronofsky’s Noah, starring Russell Crowe as the biblical hero who orders two of every animal (just like Russell Crowe at a restaurant). Aronofsky has been on a roll these past few years with The Wrestler and Black Swan, but word out of the Noah production has painted it as something of a debacle. Aronofsky and Paramount have reportedly been feuding over final cut, with “test screenings of various versions producing worrisome results.”

Those test screenings came from three separate audiences, one mostly Jewish, one mostly Christian, and one a standard general public test audience, all with mixed reactions, according to THR. The piece also quotes a few consultants basically saying that Aronofsky refuses to listen to reason, but most of the consultants seem to be from the religious side of things, and after watching that crappy Ja Rule movie executive produced by God, I’m not sure I trust their creative judgment anymore. I mean Ja Rule? Really? God thought that was a good idea?

Another wrinkle is that the animals in the film are entirely CGI – no real animals (except at craft services, inside Russell Crowe’s sandwiches). That part doesn’t sound especially promising, but this snip of footage from Entertainment Tonight doesn’t show any of the CGI creatures, just Russell Crowe looking biblical and sounding paternal, which, to be fair, he’s pretty damn good at. One of the best, really.

Oh, and also there’s this new poster, which makes it look like a shitty Roland Emmerich movie:

COME AT ME, FLO’!

I guess we’ll see when the movie opens March 28th. I tend not to put much stock in test audience reactions. Oh, you mean the people hanging out in the mall during the day in the middle of the week didn’t like it? I guess that means it’s terrible.

I heard an interview with Seth Rogen a while back. Do you know what his best testing movie so far was? Green Hornet. Yep.

Vince, I’m a little surprised that you didn’t comment directly on the fact that the horizon of the poster is tilted at a jarring angle while Noah stands perfectly straight in the middle of the frame. It looks completely ridiculous.